chancellor; under these there were to be
only the common people, consisting of the richer and poorer peasants;
the people's duty was to live and work for the ruler, and to carry out
without question whatever orders they received. They were not to discuss
or think, but to obey. The chancellor was to draft laws which came
automatically into operation. The ruler himself was to have nothing to
do with the government or with the application of the laws. He was only
a symbol, a representative of the equally inactive Heaven. Clearly these
theories were much the best suited to the conditions of the break-up of
feudalism about 300 B.C. Thus they were first adopted by the state in
which the old idea of the feudal state had been least developed, the
state of Ch'in, in which alien peoples were most strongly represented.
Shang Yang became the actual organizer of the state of Ch'in. His ideas
were further developed by Han Fei Tzu (died 233 B.C.). The mentality
which speaks out of his writings has closest similarity to the famous
Indian Arthashastra which originated slightly earlier; both books
exhibit a "Macchiavellian" spirit. It must be observed that these
theories had little or nothing to do with the ideas of the old cult of
Heaven or with family allegiance; on the other hand, the soldierly
element, with the notion of obedience, was well suited to the
militarized peoples of the west. The population of Ch'in, organized
throughout on these principles, was then in a position to remove one
opponent after another. In the middle of the third century B.C. the
greater part of the China of that time was already in the hands of
Ch'in, and in 256 B.C. the last emperor of the Chou dynasty was
compelled, in his complete impotence, to abdicate in favour of the ruler
of Ch'in.

Apart from these more or less political speculations, there came into
existence in this period, by no mere chance, a school of thought which
never succeeded in fully developing in China, concerned with natural
science and comparable with the Greek natural philosophy. We have
already several times pointed to parallels between Chinese and Indian
thoughts. Such similarities may be the result of mere coincidence. But
recent findings in Central Asia indicate that direct connections between
India, Persia, and China may have started at a time much earlier than we
had formerly thought. Sogdian merchants who later played a great role in
commercial contacts might have been active a